The Girl in the Show

This one starts off well enough, with Bessie Love and Raymond Hackett playing a couple of actors in a traveling show of 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' (a so-called 'Tom Show'). Hackett pursues Love romantically, but the relationship takes a turn for the worse when he loses her savings in a get-rich-quick scheme. Meanwhile an undertaker / busybody (Jed Prouty) initially investigating claims that a child isn't being raised properly has fallen for her himself. It's fun to watch the quaint way of speaking from the time period, and Love is such a natural. Her character's younger sister is played reasonably well by 11-year-old Nanci Price, but the movie gets a little silly when Love gets jealous of Price's acting. It's also painful to see the shameless incidents of actors in blackface. The plot is simple and nothing's going to blow you away here, but watching Love keeps it mildly entertaining.